


The End of the Story

by toyhto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death mentioned, First War with Voldemort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), M/M, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Romance, Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:16:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: But, Remus thought, what if they really had a chance? What if this time, Sirius wouldn’t stop loving him? What if they were going to be happy? What if this time, the ending would be different?
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 23
Kudos: 61
Collections: Wolfstar Games 2020





	The End of the Story

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Wolfstargames 2020, team SIGHT.
> 
> Prompt: "Who you are is speaking so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.” (Ralph Waldo)
> 
> Betaed by ambruises, thank you!

1995

  
  
It was early October. The weather had been crappy the whole week and now the rain was hitting against the windows. It was late in the evening, too late to be here. The meeting of the Order had been over an hour before, and now the only sounds in the house were the conversation Molly and Kingsley were having in the kitchen in hushed voices, and the rain, and Sirius’ breathing.  
  
Remus closed his eyes and told himself that he would go. In a minute. He would Apparate to his tiny house in Yorkshire. There, he would probably sit on the sofa for a while, waiting for the emptiness in the room to get less heavy. That wouldn’t happen, so eventually he would go to bed. Sometimes he wondered if he had been less lonely in the summer, when Sirius had been in the house with him, staring at him as if he couldn’t tell which one of them was a ghost. Sadly, Remus didn’t know that either. And it seemed entirely possible that he had been just as lonely then, only in a different way.  
  
He opened his eyes and looked at Sirius. Sirius looked smaller in Grimmauld Place than he had in Remus’ house. It couldn’t be real, because Molly was doing her best to feed him, and she was much better at it than Remus had been. Remus hadn’t known how to take care of Sirius, no, he had been so distracted he had forgotten to eat and had lost several pounds himself. What a great idea from Dumbledore, to make Sirius stay with Remus for the summer.  
  
“Crappy weather,” Sirius said as the wind knocked harder against the windows.  
  
“I should go,” Remus said.  
  
He stayed for another ten minutes, and then he left. Sirius had walked him to the front door and hadn’t said anything, and Remus hadn’t said anything either. After he got home, Remus made himself tea and then spent an hour sitting on the sofa with the cup of tea in his hands. It was obvious that he should have managed all this a little better, and he wasn’t the least surprised that he hadn’t.  
  
In the morning, the house was cold. He rolled onto his side. His bed was too big. Everything seemed too big these days. It was raining again. He took a quick shower and then looked through the window at the moors that were turning grey like they always did this time of a year. He rather felt like crying but didn’t bother.

**

The next time there was a meeting in the Grimmauld Place, Remus told himself he wasn’t going to linger afterwards. There was no point. He didn’t know what it was that he wanted to say to Sirius, because nothing he could say was going to fix what was wrong, and he didn’t even know what exactly was wrong, only that things had been like this for so long that the idea of fixing it was like the idea of stopping the tide. Or reversing gravity. But when he was in Grimmauld Place, sitting at the table with everyone else, he forgot what he had decided. Sirius was at the other side of the table, avoiding his gaze. He couldn’t stop looking at Sirius, but when Sirius finally glanced at him, he had to turn his gaze away. And he had a feeling that everyone knew, even though no one said anything. They never did. They treated Remus and Sirius as if they were old friends who were happy to see each other after a very unfortunate accident left one of them in prison for twelve years and the other thinking he belonged in there.  
  
“Do you think they know?” Remus asked after the meeting, when everyone else was already gone and he was sitting with Sirius in the drawing room that had dark green walls and curtains that smelled of smoke.  
  
“What?” Sirius said, turning to look at Remus. Sirius hadn’t said anything to him when he had taken his cup of tea, walked to the drawing room and sat down in the armchair. Sirius hadn’t pointed out that Remus should have left with the others. Surely this lingering behind wasn’t doing any good for either of them.  
  
“You know,” Remus said, sipping his tea. It wasn’t warm anymore.  
  
“No, I don’t know,” Sirius said, sounding angry for a second. Then he seemed to pull himself together. Remus kind of hated that. He wasn’t sure why. He shouldn’t have. “What do you mean? Do they know what?”  
  
“That you and I…” Remus paused and took a deep breath. God, he was a pussy.  
  
“No,” Sirius said in a sharp voice, watching him. “No, I don’t think they know that.”  
  
“I didn’t mean that we are… that we would still be…”  
  
“I know what you meant,” Sirius said. Remus doubted that, because he didn’t know what he had meant himself. “Has someone said something? Is that why you’re thinking about this?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Sirius was quiet for a moment then. “I don’t think they know. Albus doesn’t know, because if he did, he would’ve said something. He would’ve hinted at it.”  
  
“I’m not very good at taking hints these days,” Remus said.  
  
“You’re excellent,” Sirius said. “You always take hints. You think people are hinting at something even when they definitely aren’t.”  
  
Remus shook his head.  
  
“God, I’m tired,” Sirius said, resting his neck against the back of the sofa. He probably hadn’t shaved since the last time Remus had seen him. He closed his eyes and Remus stared at his throat, and then blinked. “I hate this house.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I hate everything.”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said.  
  
He left twenty minutes later. At home, he was still wondering what he had meant by it. Did the others know what? That there had been something going on between Sirius and him? Or that there still was?  
  
The upside of Sirius not staying with him anymore was that he could wank whenever he wanted. That had been difficult in the summer. He had tried to do it silently in the bathroom behind locked doors, but usually he had barely managed to get his hand on his dick when Sirius had made a noise: closed a cupboard door, walked across the room, put on the radio, something, _anything_ that reminded Remus that he was actually there and not a weird mixture of a fantasy and a malevolent ghost that Remus had been dragging along for more than thirteen years by then.  
  
So, he had barely ever gotten off during the months Sirius had spent with him. Now he sat down on the sofa, undid the zipper and pushed his hand into his pants. He shouldn’t have been thinking about Sirius. It felt like expecting something he wasn’t going to ask for. It felt as if what he had wasn’t enough for him, and wasn’t that ironic, because it _wasn’t_ enough and never would be and he wasn’t going to do anything about that.  
  
He tried for a while and then gave up, pulled his hand away and read a book for a while before going to bed. It was truly a wonder how he constantly seemed to find new aspects about how much he hated himself.

**

  
  


“Come upstairs,” Sirius said after the next meeting, when Remus was trying not to linger. He followed Sirius and felt a bit bitter about that, which was completely unfair, which only made him feel more bitter. They went to Sirius’ old room, which was apparently where Sirius was staying now. Sirius sat down on the edge of the bed and Remus stood at the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. He had only been here once and it had been long before anything had actually happened between them, but still he felt as if the past was staring at him from the walls.  
  
“What am I doing here?” he asked Sirius, but it was a bit cruel and he was tired and also knew very well that Sirius wasn’t hurting him on purpose. At least not anymore. He took a deep breath, walked to the bed and sat down next to Sirius. “Sorry. I just…”  
  
“You _just_ ,” Sirius said in a thin voice. He sounded exhausted, but in a different way than he had last summer, in Remus’ house. “Maybe if you could tell me what you _just…_ ”  
  
“I don’t think I can.”  
  
“Fuck,” Sirius said and sighed. “So, I’m staying in my old room. I’ve been trying to take the posters off, but I used a very good spell to keep them safe from my mother. They’re stuck now.”  
  
Remus looked at the posters. They were mostly pictures of half-naked women, the kind of stuff that was supposed to look like art but felt like porn. He had visited Sirius’ house once when they were fifteen, a little before Sirius had ran off. And he remembered how uncomfortable he had felt even then, being cornered by all those women expecting him to stare at them. It had been almost like no matter how hard he tried to hide that he was gay, one way or another Sirius would always slap him in the face with something. Like naked women on the walls. Or, his own naked butt.  
  
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Sirius said, looking at the posters.  
  
“There are other rooms in this house, right?”  
  
Sirius glanced at him. “Yeah.”  
  
“Guestrooms?”  
  
“Yeah, but –”  
  
“Come on,” Remus said and stood up. “Take your stuff. We’re moving you.”  
  
“You’re crazy,” Sirius said, sounding slightly surprised.  
  
Remus cleared his throat. “I said, take your stuff.”  
  
It turned out that Sirius didn’t have much to take with him. They took Sirius’ three shirts and the book Sirius had been reading to one of the guestrooms down the corridor. It was grim and off-putting in the same way that the rest of the house was, but impersonal. Sirius opened the curtains but the window was covered with a layer of dust and the backyard looked like it was lacking colour.  
  
“Was it like this?” Sirius asked, still looking through the window.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Us. In the summer.”  
  
Remus bit his lip.  
  
“Because I can’t remember much,” Sirius said, and now he sounded like he was slightly panicking. “I don’t know why. Maybe because I spent half of the time as Padfoot. Or maybe my memory’s just… maybe everything gets hazy after a few months from now on, I don’t… I don’t know. But I feel like… I don’t remember it being so… at least you _were_ there.”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said. He had been there. He had always known where Sirius was, what he was doing, and it was like his personal ghost had materialised after thirteen years and was following him now.  
  
But he had also had hope. He wished Sirius didn’t remember that. He had had hope that in a few days Sirius would recover enough that they could talk about old things and fix everything and realise that the best they could do now was to try to be together, even though they both were like a very bad copy of what they had once been. And when that hadn’t happened in a few days, he had hoped it would happen in a few weeks. And then, in a few months. And then it was autumn and Dumbledore had told Sirius to go to Grimmauld Place, and Remus had said it was probably wise, and Sirius had left.  
  
“I feel like you don’t…” Sirius paused, closed the curtains and turned to Remus. Before all this, he had always known what he thought about everything and he had loved talking about it, even when he had been wrong. _Especially_ when he had been wrong. Especially when he had _known_ he was wrong. “I feel…” Sirius said again and swallowed. He had shaved at some point but had missed a lot of spots. “Like you’re disappointed.”  
  
Remus took a deep breath. “Sirius –”  
  
“No,” Sirius said and raised his hand in a gesture to stop him from talking. “Don’t tell me you aren’t, unless you mean it, because I can’t… I can’t _tell_ anymore, do you realise, I can’t tell if you mean something or not, and that’s just… I used to, didn’t I?”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said. That had probably been the only reason for why they had ever managed to do anything about… about…  
  
“I knew when you were saying something just to, I don’t know, keep me away.” Sirius suddenly looked so hurt that Remus had to look away. It was completely unfair that even now, when Sirius didn’t seem to know what he was feeling and definitely couldn’t talk about it, and when sometimes he looked like there was a layer of years on every emotion he had, he still managed to look hurt so intensely. “To protect yourself, I suppose,” Sirius said. His voice was lacking colour like the backyard. “But I could tell. I knew when you needed me to push.”  
  
Remus laughed briefly.  
  
“I didn’t…” Sirius said and paused. “I didn’t mean…”  
  
“Yeah, I _know._ ” Remus shifted on his feet. He knew very well that he was the one who was constantly thinking about sex, about fucking, and he couldn’t stop even though he knew he was being an idiot and more than a little cruel, too. He couldn’t even begin to understand what Sirius had gone through, and never would. He should have been a supportive friend, and whatever else had been there between them, well, all that should have been left aside for now. Sirius wasn’t the same man anymore, and _he_ wasn’t the same man, but they could be friends. They _were_ friends. Only Remus couldn’t stop thinking about things like being pushed down on his face in bed, the flat of Sirius’ palm heavy on his back, Sirius’ breathing in his ear, words that didn’t make sense anymore as Sirius slipped a finger in between his cheeks, holding him down, brushing the tip of his finger against his -  
  
He cleared his throat and took a step back, hitting his shoulder against a closet that hissed at him.  
  
“Sorry,” Remus said.  
  
“I don’t want you to…” Sirius paused and breathed in and out. He seemed frustrated. But thirteen years ago, he would have been saying everything that was on his mind at this point. He would have told Remus exactly what he was thinking and what he thought Remus was thinking and what he thought Remus was _supposed_ to be thinking and what should happen next. Now, he was just staring at Remus as if he had forgotten all the words. Or himself. “Don’t apologise,” he said finally. “I don’t want that.”  
  
“Sorry,” Remus said and then bit his lip. “ _Fuck._ ”  
  
“Can you just…” Sirius took a deep breath. “If you’re disappointed in me, can you just tell me, so that we can…”  
  
“I’m not disappointed in you.”  
  
“I don’t know if you’re lying,” Sirius said, looking at him with wide eyes.  
  
“I’m disappointed in both of us,” he said and it felt like he was trying to open a very heavy door that was locked for a reason. But Sirius was looking at him, and everything was a mess inside his head, the incredible relief when he had realised everything he had believed for the last thirteen years had been a lie, the happiness about the idea that he would have another chance with Sirius, the paralysing fear when he tried not to think what kind of chance he wanted, the loneliness that had hit him in the face when Sirius had come to stay with him in the summer and nothing had been right. He had spent thirteen years trying to make sense of what had happened. He felt like he didn’t recognise himself anymore.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, “if you’re angry –”  
  
“I’m not. I’m _not._ I _can’t_ be angry at you, it wasn’t your fault, and you’ve been… you’ve been paying for it, and it was never your fault…”  
  
“Some things were,” Sirius said, watching him. He didn’t understand how Sirius could sound so calm about it. Sirius had never been calm before, except in the end, and Remus was trying not to think about the end.  
  
“No,” Remus said. “I don’t want to talk about that.”  
  
“You don’t want to talk about anything.”  
  
“That’s not true.” It was definitely true, but Sirius looked confused.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, chewing on his lower lip. Remus wanted to tell him to stop. His lips were chapped and looked like they would start bleeding if he kept chewing on them. “I’m sorry about… about… you know. I’m sorry about that. I don’t remember much, because… I think the memories from right before I went to… I can’t make sense of them. As you know. I think I told you. But I’m sorry that I… I was wrong.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Remus said, trying to keep his voice from trembling. Sirius never cried these days, so there was no reason why he should, either. “I was wrong, too, as it turns out.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said slowly, “but I didn’t mean just that. I didn’t mean that I’m sorry that I thought you were the… the spy. I’m also sorry that I…”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, turning away.  
  
Sirius was quiet for a moment. He had never been quiet that way, before. “Do you ever wonder… if it hadn’t happened, if we hadn’t…”  
  
“If we hadn’t broken up,” Remus said, even though it took everything he had to say it with a steady voice. But the look on Sirius’ face was worth it.  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said. “Do you think things would’ve been different?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Remus said. “I don’t think about that.” He thought about that, a lot, no matter how much he tried not to. The only thing that was certain was that he couldn’t change the past, so surely it was pointless to spend his time thinking about what would have been different, if only he could have changed the past. But he couldn’t help it. He kept thinking about all the wrong things, like Sirius fucking him, and about what would have happened if they hadn’t broken up in August 1981. Maybe he would have realised that what everyone thought Sirius had done was impossible. Maybe Sirius wouldn’t have gone to Azkaban for twelve years, and maybe Remus wouldn’t have lost everything.  
  
“Okay,” Sirius said, looking exhausted now. “Okay. I just… I think about it sometimes.”  
  
“You probably shouldn’t,” Remus said. “There’s nothing we can do about the past. Are you eating properly?”  
  
He left soon after that. His hands were still trembling when he was in his own house, in the kitchen, trying to make himself tea, and the charm kept slipping away from him. It was raining outside, and he was crying, and he couldn’t stop thinking about things he should have forgotten by now. Like Sirius had.

**

**

1981

“You can stay here,” Sirius said. He was already wearing his leather jacket. “I’ll find another place.” He looked once more a little over Remus’ left shoulder, and then he Apparated out. Remus stood up from the sofa, walked in a circle, walked in another circle, then went to the kitchen and tried to make tea but his hands were shaking too much, so he went to the bathroom and washed his face. He wasn’t even crying anymore. Yet. Anymore. He had been crying earlier today, he was sure of that, but his eyes weren’t even red now. He stared himself in the eyes and tried to see what was wrong in there, why this was happening to him, and then he almost laughed. _Of course_ it was happening to him. What was weird was that he hadn’t seen it coming.  
  
But he hadn’t. He went back to the sofa, then to the kitchen, then to the bedroom, but they had fucked last night and the sheets were still wrinkled and one of the pillows was on the floor and he just couldn’t bear it. He went to the living room. Then he thought that maybe he would feel better if he left the flat for a little bit, so he went to the park nearby and walked around a little. But it turned out that he had forgotten to take his coat with him, and the evening was cold even though it was only August, and he was freezing. His face felt like it was made of stone. He was pretty sure he would never smile again, and then he felt ridiculous because of course he would, this was just a break-up, and he had always known it would happen in the end. Sirius wouldn’t stick with him. Well, alright, lately he had been sure he would die and that would be how this would end, but the point was that he had known this would end in one way or another. He just wasn’t the kind of a person to whom the universe or whoever fuck was in charge of these things gave something precious like this. He should have been happy that he had gotten a chance to be with Sirius for some time. He should have been happy about the good parts.  
  
He went back home, tried to read a book but couldn’t see the words, made tea that was too hot and then too cold, tried to clean up the living room, and ended up sitting on the floor, crying. He should have realised this was going to happen. He should have realised something was wrong, that Sirius didn’t love him anymore, probably never had, really, even though that wasn’t what Sirius had said, only he wasn’t exactly sure what Sirius _had_ said because his ears had been ringing and he had been thinking that it couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be real, and also he had felt calm the same way he had felt a few weeks ago when the Death Eaters had attacked Barney Hamilton’s house and he had been one of the first to arrive there. Calm before a disaster. Now he didn’t feel calm anymore, no, he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He got up from the floor, grabbed the back of the sofa to keep on his feet, and stumbled to the bathroom. Well, now he was crying. And he couldn’t stop. He wanted to go after Sirius and ask Sirius to explain this to him, and change his mind, but also he knew he couldn’t do that. Sirius had left him. That was how it was. He needed to put himself together and keep going. He had been dumped. Nothing else. People got over things like that every day. He shouldn’t have been crying like this. He shouldn’t have been grabbing the edge of the sink as if he really couldn’t even stand up anymore, as if he was so pathetic he was going to crumble into pieces only because Sirius had left him -  
  
He sat down on the bathroom floor and stayed there for a long while. It helped a little that he dug his fingers into his forearm. Every time he was going to start to cry again, he squeezed a little harder, and the pain cut through the panic, and he could almost breathe. Almost.  
  
He didn’t sleep much. It was raining. The bed smelled of Sirius, so at some point he took his duvet and went to the sofa. But the duvet smelled of Sirius too, so he got rid of it and made a warming charm. It didn’t help. The windows were clattering. Sirius didn’t come home. He wondered where Sirius had gone. He wondered what he would do the next morning, and the next, and the next, and for the rest of his life. And he also wondered why he couldn’t just be calm about this. He hadn’t been good enough for Sirius and Sirius had left him, end of the story.

**

Three days later, Sirius came back to the flat. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping, which made Remus feel a little bit better, but on the other hand, seeing Sirius at all made him feel worse. He had told himself over and over again that he would get over this, and now he realised he had been lying to himself.  
  
“Hey,” Sirius said and stopped at the doorway. He pushed his hands into the pockets of the leather jacket and looked at Remus as if he expected Remus to either start crying or hex him.  
  
“Hey,” Remus said, biting his lip.  
  
“You look better,” Sirius said warily. “How are you… is everything…”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, even though he didn’t know what exactly Sirius was asking. But the thing was, he wasn’t okay, he wasn’t better, he was a wreck and there were moments when he was a little worried he might climb over the balcony fence and jump. Not really. But still.  
  
“You’re okay,” Sirius said.  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said.  
  
“Great. I didn’t want to…” Sirius paused and rubbed his left ear. “I didn’t want to hurt you. It’s just…”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Remus said, even though he didn’t. What he knew was that he wasn’t good enough. That at least was easy to believe, even though everything else had come quite suddenly.  
  
Or maybe he was lying to himself about that, too. It hadn’t been sudden. He had realised that Sirius had become distant, hadn’t he? But he had thought it was the war. He had known they were talking less and sleeping less and looking at each other in the eyes less, but he had been so tired and worried and scared of dying that he had just thought they would get through it. They loved each other, right? They would get through it. And so when he had asked Sirius if there was something wrong and Sirius had said ‘no’, he had believed it and hadn’t asked again. Sirius had always been honest with him, anyway. Even too honest sometimes.  
  
“I didn’t know,” Sirius said now, watching him. “I didn’t know what to say, until it just… I just couldn’t anymore…”  
  
“You just couldn’t be with me anymore.”  
  
Sirius swallowed.  
  
“Yeah, I get it,” Remus said and turned away from him. “So, why’re you here? Did you need something? Your stuff? I’m going to move out, I just need a couple more –”  
  
“You don’t need to move out,” Sirius said. “I told you, you can stay here, I’ll find something else.”  
  
“This is your flat,” Remus said, realising that he was suddenly angry. “What do you think, that I’m just going to stay in your flat after you dumped me? That I don’t have anywhere else to go?”  
  
Sirius stared at him.  
  
“I _don’t_ ,” he said, “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” except that he could go to Fenrir’s pack. He fucking hoped Sirius wasn’t thinking about that, because if Sirius was, well, he would throw something at Sirius, he would hit Sirius on the face or -  
  
 _God_ , he was tired.  
  
“I’m going to go somewhere,” he said and cleared his throat. “This afternoon. Then you don’t need to see me anymore. I’ll be gone this afternoon. I swear.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, sounding utterly unhappy, which was just fucking unfair, wasn’t it, since he was the one who wanted this.  
  
“Shut up,” Remus said. Apparently he was walking in a circle now. But he couldn’t stop, because if he stopped, he was pretty sure he would start crying. He never wanted Sirius to see him cry again. But also he didn’t know why that mattered. Sirius knew everything about him and wanted to get rid of him, so what the fuck did it matter if Sirius saw him crying? “Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck –”  
  
“Hey,” Sirius said, stepped over to him and grabbed his hands. “Stop that. Breathe. You don’t need to go. Not this afternoon. I’ll stay away, and you can find somewhere else to live. There’s no rush.”  
  
“Don’t do that,” Remus said. Sirius was stroking his wrists with his thumbs. He wondered vaguely if Sirius knew that he was doing, and if Sirius noticed that Remus’ hands were shaking.  
  
“You’re going to be alright,” Sirius said. It sounded like a question.  
  
“Yeah,” he lied.  
  
“And this is for the best,” Sirius said, staring at him. Remus wanted to look away but couldn’t. Maybe this would be the last time he would have Sirius so close. “For both of us. We haven’t been talking much lately. Surely you know that.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said, trying to memorise everything: the way Sirius smelled, the way his touch felt, the sound of his voice. Everything. Because he would have to live the rest of his life without any of it.  
  
“Something’s broken,” Sirius said, “and I can’t fix it. It’s better this way.”  
  
 _I can fix it,_ Remus thought. _Just tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it. Please. Let me fix it. Let me try._  
  
He went home to Wales that afternoon. Dad seemed surprised to see him. He told him that they had broken up, he and Sirius, but it was okay and he didn’t want to talk about it. Everything felt grim in a way that it never had before, but at least there was the war going on and he would probably die soon.

**

**

1995

Dumbledore had sent him a letter saying that Sirius was coming to stay with him for the summer. He hadn’t answered, because Dumbledore hadn’t exactly asked him anything. Then he had spent four days unable to concentrate on anything, until finally there was a black dog on his door and then a thin, tired man sitting on his sofa like a frozen ghost. He made Sirius tea but Sirius didn’t drink it. He took the cup from Sirius’ hands and emptied it himself. The tea was already cold. He asked if Sirius was hungry and Sirius said he wasn’t. Thank god it was late in the evening. He transfigured the sofa into a bed and brought Sirius a duvet and a pillow, and then he brushed his teeth with shaking hands and locked the bathroom door to take a piss and then went to his own bedroom, and everything felt like he was in a surreal play where his lover who had been a traitor and a murderer wasn’t any of that after all and was sleeping on his sofa. Except that they weren’t lovers because Sirius had dumped him.  
  
He didn’t sleep much. In the morning, he opened the door to the living room as quietly as he could, but Sirius opened his eyes and looked straight at him. The light in the room was still dim and from the outside, he could hear cranes calling in the distance.  
  
“I’m here,” Sirius said, looking slightly surprised.  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, stopping at the doorway. He was wearing pants and a pullover, but maybe he should have had trousers, too. They didn’t know each other anymore. He couldn’t just walk around half-naked. But then he realised he was being ridiculous: after everything Sirius had gone through, he certainly wouldn’t give a shit about the state of Remus’ clothing. He didn’t care.  
  
“I thought it was a dream,” Sirius said, still watching him.  
  
“Do you want coffee?” he asked and walked to the kitchen. “Or tea?”  
  
“Remus –”  
  
“I’ll make you coffee,” he said. “You don’t need to drink it if you don’t want to. And I’m going to fry eggs for breakfast. I can’t do much else. I know I’ve had time to learn, but I just… I didn’t see the point.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said. His voice was lower and hoarser but he still sounded the same. Remus had forgotten his voice and hadn’t even realised that, and now hearing Sirius speak felt like someone had taken a tight grip of Remus’ chest and squeezed it. “I don’t mind.”  
  
“You used to drink coffee,” Remus said and hated himself for it. He shouldn’t talk about the past. He didn’t want Sirius to think that he was expecting something from Sirius.  
  
“Coffee,” Sirius said slowly. “Yeah. I don’t remember what… but coffee’s good. And anything.”  
  
“If you don’t want fried eggs –”  
  
“No, yeah, of course I want it. Come on, Remus. I want it.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“You haven’t changed much,” Sirius said. He made it sound like that was a good thing.  
  
“Of course I have,” Remus said, putting the pan on the stove.  
  
“I remember you,” Sirius said and then cleared his throat. “I mean, of course I remember you, but I… I used to remember you, when I was… in there.”  
  
Remus bit his lip. “In Azkaban.”  
  
“I didn’t remember much. It’s… they suck all the happy memories out of you, and then you just… kind of lose your mind, I think. But you were… I still could…” Sirius paused. Remus kept his eyes on the frying pan, on his own hands, anywhere else except Sirius. So, Sirius hadn’t forgotten him. He hadn’t been a happy memory, then. And wasn’t it fucking brilliant that he still felt so bitter after thirteen years? Anyone sane would have gotten over the break-up ten times by now.  
  
“I missed you,” Sirius said.  
  
Remus swallowed.  
  
“I missed you in there. Even though I had kind of forgotten about everything.”  
  
“I missed you, too,” Remus said and loaded the coffee machine. It was old and he had tried to fix it with charms, which had only made it more erratic. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the breakfast, but he couldn’t take Sirius’ silence. He looked over his shoulder. Sirius was sitting on the sofa that was still a bed. He didn’t have a shirt on and didn’t seem to realise that. He was so thin his ribs were poking out weirdly, and there were scars on his stomach that were a bit too straight.  
  
Remus bit his lip. “Sirius –”  
  
Sirius blinked and then grabbed the duvet and pulled it up to his chin.  
  
“I didn’t…” Remus took a deep breath. _Fucking hell._ “I’m so sorry,” he said, feeling as if the words were stuck in his throat. “I should’ve known it couldn’t be you. I should have. I just… I don’t know what I… everyone kept telling me it was you, and I couldn’t _think,_ and so…”  
  
“You couldn’t have changed anything,” Sirius said, which meant that he had been thinking about it.  
  
“I might have,” Remus said. “Sorry.”  
  
“I don’t want you to apologise,” Sirius said, watching him with an odd look on his face. “I don’t want that.”  
  
“I just –”  
  
“Stop it.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“For fuck’s sake,” Sirius said and stood up. The duvet fell onto the floor. Sirius walked to the bathroom and locked the door, and after a few seconds, unlocked it. Remus stared at the door. The house was too quiet, there was a little more light now, the eggs were burning, and he didn’t know how they would get through the day, let alone the whole summer.

**

One of the things that didn’t make much sense was that apparently he still wanted to have sex with Sirius. At first he thought it was just that he had been lonely for so long and was, objectively speaking, in need of a good fuck. A few years ago he had had something going on with a man from the village a few miles to the east over the moors, the kind of a thing that couldn’t take any talking about it or else it would shatter. The first time anything had happened, Remus had managed to end up on his knees on the man’s bedroom floor and get his mouth around the man’s cock without discussing anything, and then everything had gone quite well from there, until one night he had come to see the man and there had been a woman in the house who had shut the door at his face. He hadn’t gone back ever since. So, now it had to be over two years since he had last slept with anyone, and that was probably the reason why he now found himself watching Sirius’ fingers and wondering what they would feel like digging into his skin.  
  
But he was lying to himself. He knew that and tried to anyway, but one evening after a week or so, Sirius had tried to cut his hair in the bathroom and the way he was holding the scissors seemed so dangerous that Remus went to him, took the scissors, and told him to sit down. Sirius wasn’t wearing much clothing at that point, and Remus stood so close to him he could feel the warmth of his skin as he cut his hair, slowly, because his hands were trembling again. Sirius closed his eyes. He looked younger like this. And Remus wanted nothing more than to put the scissors away and tell him to stand up, to walk to the living room, no, bedroom, because surely there was no reason to pretend they didn’t know each other, right? Sirius had been the first person to ever fuck Remus. The only person for almost two years. Sirius had known him through and through. Sirius had known him and left him anyway and so he had nothing left of his pride. He might as well get on his knees and elbows in bed, where Sirius could fuck him or do whatever he wanted with him. He just wanted to feel Sirius’ hands on him again. He needed it. For thirteen years he had been missing Sirius’ touch, and he would beg for Sirius to touch him, yeah, he would do anything, just anything if Sirius only -  
  
“What’re you thinking about?” Sirius asked, watching Remus through the mirror.  
  
“Nothing,” Remus said. He pulled his hands away from Sirius’ hair. “Do you want it shorter?”  
  
“No, this is good,” Sirius said. “Thank you.”  
  
“Alright,” Remus said and walked out of the bathroom, then through the entry hallway and to the yard, and there he took a deep breath, rested his hands on his hips and looked down to the valley. It was a pretty day. The sun was almost shining. And he was a fucking idiot. He was still in love with Sirius and always had been and probably would always be.

**

Sirius’ hair was terrible. After a week, Remus came home from the village and found Sirius in his bedroom, which was the only room with a proper mirror, standing there naked and trying to see his own butt.  
  
“We need to cut your hair again,” Remus said. “Or take you to a barber.”  
  
“No barbers,” Sirius said, throwing glances at Remus, but he didn’t tell Remus to fuck off and stop staring at his naked ass, so Remus didn’t. “Did you buy milk?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Do you remember how I used to look?”  
  
Remus swallowed. “Yeah.”  
  
“Really?” Sirius frowned at him. “Even though it’s been thirteen years?”  
  
“I remember how you used to look.”  
  
“Great,” Sirius said. “I didn’t look like this, did I?”  
  
Remus shook his head.  
  
“I thought so,” Sirius said, sounding almost glad. There was something about his voice, a smug undertone, that was like a punch on the face. He had used to talk as if he knew all the answers already. At least when they were teenagers. Not later, when the war had gotten worse. “I used to look good.”  
  
Remus looked away from him. “Maybe we shouldn’t –”  
  
“Come on,” Sirius cut in. “You thought I looked good. Right?”  
  
Remus nodded.  
  
“I’m too thin now,” Sirius said, glaring at himself in the mirror. “And you’re right. The hair isn’t good. Can you cut it again?”  
  
“I don’t know if I can do it any better.”  
  
“I trust you,” Sirius said and then froze. Remus wanted to walk away but couldn’t. There was sunlight coming through the window, painting the floor and Sirius’ legs that had old cuts on them, too, cuts that were too straight to be anything else, and Remus had been trying to decide if he ought to ask or not and had come up with nothing. Sirius looked like someone had taken a part of him and squeezed him a little, but he was still the same, and he was naked, and right there, and Remus had had his hands everywhere on him a long time ago.  
  
He stared at the dimples above Sirius’ ass. “No, you didn’t.”  
  
Sirius took a deep breath.  
  
“You thought it was me,” Remus said. He had told himself over and over again that he wasn’t going to talk about it. It wasn’t even the part that he was bitter about. He was bitter that Sirius had stopped loving him. But he couldn’t say that out loud. “You thought I was the traitor,” he said, trying to make his voice light and failing. “And you pushed me away.”  
  
“Remus –”  
  
“We’re going to cut your hair. Put your clothes on and go to the bathroom. I’ll put the milk in the fridge.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said.  
  
“It’s alright,” Remus said, turning away. “It was a long time ago.”

**

There seemed to be an infinite amount of things he didn’t want to discuss with Sirius, and the more time they spent together that summer, the better Remus steered away from those conversations long before they started. Mostly they talked about the weather or didn’t talk at all. Sometimes he wondered if Sirius even remembered they had been together or if that was something that Sirius had lost in Azkaban. He wondered if Sirius remembered they had been in love, or at least Remus had thought so. And he wondered if Sirius realised that he still was.  
  
Once, in July, Sirius found a bottle of whiskey Remus had hid behind the bookshelf in the spring when he had started thinking that maybe he was drinking too much. Now they finished the bottle together. It was a bad idea. Remus had been afraid he would cry. He didn’t but asked about Sirius’ scars instead. Sirius had pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and looked at his forearms, and then he said he had made them with a piece of a broken glass.  
  
“They left a piece of a broken glass in your cell,” Remus said, not quite recognising his own voice. He was sitting in an armchair, Sirius was on the sofa, and he wanted to walk to Sirius and take his face in between his hands and kiss him.  
  
“I hadn’t realised I’ve got so many,” Sirius said, inspecting his scars. “Yours are nicer.”  
  
“My –”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You think my scars are nicer.”  
  
“They look rough. These look like…”  
  
“Like you cut yourself with a piece of a broken glass.”  
  
Sirius shrugged, but at least he seemed a little uncomfortable.  
  
“I hate to think that you did that.”  
  
“Well, I didn’t exactly mean to,” Sirius said and glanced at him. “It’s like… like you’re hurting so badly you can’t take it, but inside your head.”  
  
He looked away.  
  
“The pain helped a little,” Sirius said. “Anyway, tell me something.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Something. About the time when you… about the last thirteen years.”  
  
Remus stared at him. “Like what?”  
  
“Tell me about you.”  
  
“There’s nothing to tell.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Sirius said in a heavy voice. “Tell me you’ve done stuff. I always thought… I thought if I wasn’t there to drag you out of the house sometimes, you would just sit on the sofa with your precious books.”  
  
Remus swallowed. “You don’t remember that.”  
  
“Of course I remember that,” Sirius said. “So, did you? Did you just sit on the sofa with your books?”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said without quite realising it. Sirius had said that to him once in their flat in Diagon Alley, after they had gone out to a pub and had danced a little and then Apparated home and had sex against the wall which had been a bad idea, and Remus couldn’t realise how there could have been a time when he had been a person who first said that maybe they should do this in bed and then leaned against the wall anyway, bent down so that Sirius could get his dick inside him. But later, they had been lying on the sofa, Sirius’ arms wrapped around him and his nose against the crook of Sirius’ neck, and Sirius had told him he had the personality of a grey wet blanket and it was truly an incredible coincidence that he had Sirius who was willing to take him to places, because otherwise he would have never left home. Remus had agreed. But then again, he had been feeling thoroughly fucked and loved in a way he hadn’t believed he ever would, and shouldn’t have believed, as it had turned out soon enough.  
  
“Don’t look at me like that,” Sirius said. “I remember things.”  
  
“What things?”  
  
“About you,” Sirius said, then reached to grab the bottle of whiskey and drank from the mouth. The whiskey was almost gone at that point. “Have you fucked a lot of people?”  
  
“Don’t ask me that,” Remus said. He felt like crawling out of his skin. He couldn’t move, because if he did, he would get up and walk over to Sirius and grab Sirius’ shoulders and either punch him in the face or kiss him. “No.”  
  
“You haven’t?”  
  
He shook his head, sinking deeper into the armchair.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I just… it’s not that easy.”  
  
Sirius was staring at him. “But you’ve fucked someone.”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“Who was it? Did you… do you have a…”  
  
“I don’t have anyone,” he said. “No relationships. Just… casual sex. Sometimes.”  
  
“With whom?”  
  
“I don’t know. A guy from the village. Someone from a bar. A man who followed me in the park. People like that.”  
  
“Doesn’t sound romantic,” Sirius said.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“It’s got nothing to do with you,” Remus said. It had everything to do with Sirius. “It was just sex. Give me the bottle.”  
  
Sirius floated the bottle to him and he grabbed it in the air. Sirius wasn’t using much magic, but whenever he did, he did it flawlessly. At first Remus had thought he was out of practice and was afraid he’d mess up, but obviously it wasn’t that.  
  
“Just sex,” Sirius said slowly, watching him. “You used to think I was pretty.”  
  
He drank from the bottle.  
  
“Before. You used to think that.”  
  
“I remember,” he said.  
  
“You look so angry now,” Sirius said.  
  
Remus tried to answer that, but he couldn’t figure out what to say. Everything tasted wrong in his mouth, so in the end he said nothing. He drank a little more and then started talking about the weather, and Sirius listened to him going on and on about the flowers on the moors and the mist that sometimes hid the whole world from him and, probably, him from the world, and the way the autumns were surprisingly cold, and there was frost in the mornings, and the heating in the house wasn’t good. It was an old Muggle house and the charms weren’t helping much. Sirius listened to him patiently, probably more patiently than the Sirius he missed would have, and he finished the whiskey and then closed his eyes and stopped talking but didn’t dare open his eyes, because what if Sirius was looking at him, and what if he couldn’t hold himself back anymore, what if he said something he couldn’t take back, and what if he lost this odd half-version of Sirius he had just gotten back and which meant more to him than anything else in this world.  
  
When Remus finally opened his eyes, Sirius had fallen asleep.

**

**

1995

The winter came suddenly. It was early December, when Remus woke up to a snowstorm outside and a freezing room. He put his pullover on to get to the bathroom, and then he had to cast at least half a dozen charms before he managed to warm up the water for a shower. The water went cold again when he was just about to finish jerking off. He finished anyway and it felt a lot like every fantasy he had had since 1981: a moment of self-deception and then the bitter aftertaste when he ran out of optimism.  
  
There was a meeting of the Order that evening. He didn’t want to go, but he had to, because this had nothing to do with him, nothing to do with the old ache he was unable to let go of, nothing to do with how difficult it was to face Sirius over and over again when absolutely nothing seemed to be getting better. Or maybe they were talking a bit more again, but mostly about things that didn’t matter, and sometimes Remus wondered if that was worse. He was supposed to be happy about it, happy about being around Sirius and being able to talk about the weather. He was supposed to be happy that Sirius was at least alive if not exactly well. It was supposed to be enough. But it wasn’t. Maybe he should have kissed Sirius last summer. Maybe the night when they had been drunk with whiskey and had for once talked about something of essence. He could have kissed Sirius, and if Sirius had pushed him away, well, at least Sirius would have known. Remus wouldn’t have had to pretend anymore that kissing Sirius wasn’t what he wanted, that _everything_ wasn’t what he wanted.  
  
He didn’t have any clean clothes, so he had to do the laundry. The storm was getting worse. He would have to get someone to fix the house eventually, a Muggle, someone who understood the way this place had been built and wouldn’t try to hide the problems with magic. But he didn’t have the money, and he wasn’t sure if he exactly cared.  
  
He waited as long as he could bear but still he was too early when he finally Apparated to Grimmauld Place. Thank god Molly and Tonks were there already, sitting in the kitchen and talking in light voices. Remus stopped at the doorway and glanced around.  
  
“He’s upstairs,” Tonks said.  
  
“I wasn’t –,” Remus began, then paused and gave up. Molly floated a cup of tea at him and he took it, which helped a little, because now he had a reason to sit down at the table and not go looking for Sirius.  
  
He cleaned up the kitchen with Arthur after the meeting. Arthur lingered behind for a moment, asked him how he was doing, how was the nice Muggle house where he was living, and he told Arthur it was terribly cold and he was about to freeze in there. _How fascinating_ , Arthur said and then told him to take care of himself. He felt like laughing but supposed that would have been impolite. He didn’t want to be impolite. He didn’t have many people left in his life who still bothered to pretend he was worth caring about. He definitely shouldn’t push them away by being himself.  
  
He took his coat, walked to the front door and then turned back. A fucking idiot, that was what he was, but he just couldn’t leave. His house would be empty and cold and covered in snow and he had read all his books twice and there was nothing to do, and even if there had been, he would have spent the rest of the evening thinking about Sirius anyway. Sirius had seemed restless today, hadn’t been looking anyone in the eyes, had pointed out a couple of times that they shouldn’t have been hiding, which probably meant that _he_ was tired of hiding. Now, he was in the drawing room, sitting in the dark green velvet sofa that had odd stains on it. Remus sat down next to him. The cushions shifted. Sirius took a deep breath and then covered his face with his hands.  
  
“Fucking hell.”  
  
“Maybe you’re just tired,” Remus said, trying not to look at him.  
  
“It’s not that,” Sirius said. “Or it could be, but I don’t think… I swear I’m losing my mind.”  
  
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Remus said, but he knew how little it meant that people said things like that. _You’re going to be alright,_ for example.  
  
“Being here… You know that my memories are a little bit… fucked. Especially the time before Azkaban, it’s just… it keeps shifting, and I suppose some things have disappeared for good, and sometimes memories come back but I can’t tell if they’re real or not, and it’s like… sometimes I think my brain is just rewriting it, and I hate it, because that’s the time in my life that really matters, so I should remember…”  
  
“Why?” Remus asked, his voice coming out thin. Why was that the time that mattered?  
  
“Anyway,” Sirius said, “being here kind of makes me feel that maybe nothing else was ever real. Like, maybe I never left this place. Maybe I’ve been here all along. Because I remember my childhood, I remember growing up in this fucking place, but I’m having hard time remembering anything else, or being sure about anything else, and then I’m here every day and the paintings tell me about things that happened when I was a kid and talk to me about my mother and Regulus and all that, and I just…”  
  
“This is the safest place for you.”  
  
“I _know._ ” Sirius sighed. “I’m not going to try to run away or anything. I wouldn’t have anywhere to go.”  
  
 _You could come to me,_ Remus thought.  
  
“Hey,” Sirius said then, his voice strained, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”  
  
Remus turned to look at him. “Okay.”  
  
“I don’t know exactly,” Sirius said, frowning. He had his hands on his knees and he was squeezing them so that the knuckles were going white. The sofa sighed. The paintings on the wall were whispering to themselves, and Remus was really cold but supposed it could be the winter. “Something about us.”  
  
Remus swallowed. He should go. He should get up and leave, because what if Sirius asked if Remus still loved him, and he couldn’t tell Sirius that, he just couldn’t, he couldn’t be in love with someone who had left him more than thirteen years ago.  
  
He clenched his fists. “Something about us?”  
  
“Yeah. Something about… I’ve been thinking that maybe I…” Sirius glanced at him. “I left you, didn’t I?”  
  
He nodded, feeling like he had been carved out of stone. He had to concentrate to breathe in and out.  
  
“Sorry,” Sirius said as if to test it.  
  
“It’s alright.”  
  
“Of course it isn’t.”  
  
Remus opened his mouth and then closed it again.  
  
“I don’t know why I did it,” Sirius said slowly. “I can’t remember.”  
  
“You did it because you stopped loving me,” Remus said. He sounded like he was about to start crying. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t going to. He was going to have this conversation with Sirius and then leave and never talk about it again.  
  
Sirius was quiet for a long time. “I don’t remember that.”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, “well, that’s what happened.”  
  
“I remember…” Sirius paused. “I remember your face. I guess it was a few days after. I had come back home to pick up some things or… to check on you, probably. And we talked a bit. I don’t know about what. But you looked like you were afraid to touch me. As if I had hit you in the face or something. Or as if I had broken you.”  
  
Remus bit his lip. Oh, god, he couldn’t speak now.  
  
“Remus?”  
  
“Yeah,” he said.  
  
“You looked so hurt.”  
  
“I was…” But he had to stop, because otherwise he’d start crying.  
  
“I remember that,” Sirius said, staring at him. “But I can’t make sense why. I can’t remember that I stopped loving you. I can’t remember anything like that. I just… I think I couldn’t reach you anymore, and I couldn’t talk to you, and I thought you might be the traitor, and I was so afraid, and I just needed to get out somehow, and I knew you’d talk me out of it, you always knew how to.”  
  
“That’s not true.”  
  
“Sure it is. I would’ve done anything for you. It was scary. I was fucking terrified.”  
  
Remus shook his head. “You didn’t love me anymore.”  
  
“In Azkaban,” Sirius said, “I kept remembering that stuff, you and me, a few days after I had left. And before. Do you remember, the last… the last night, I think we had already talked about it, but then we fucked, and…”  
  
“You had already told me that you wanted to break up.”  
  
“But we fucked anyway,” Sirius said, looking at him as if he was holding all the answers. “Right?”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“And I think you were crying,” Sirius said, “in my memories you were crying, the Dementors couldn’t take it away, of course they couldn’t. And I just… I thought it was just about right, because you had broken my heart, it felt right that you were crying now, and I was… I just kept fucking you.”  
  
Remus closed his eyes. “I didn’t want you to stop.”  
  
“But you were crying.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter.” He felt like he had been crying pretty much for the last thirteen years. Surely that one time didn’t make much difference.  
  
“That’s what I remember,” Sirius said very slowly. “So, it’s been a little… I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know what to do. I’m missing something, and you are… you’re kind of still looking at me the same way. The same way that’s in my memories.”  
  
Remus opened his eyes and looked at Sirius.  
  
“Like that,” Sirius said.  
  
“I can’t help it,” Remus said. “Sorry.”  
  
“Stop fucking apologising to me.”  
  
Remus swallowed.  
  
“I just want to fix it,” Sirius said. “I want to fix it, but I don’t know how.”  
  
“I’m not sure you can fix it,” Remus said.  
  
“I don’t know what you want from me.”  
  
Remus shook his head.  
  
“Bullshit,” Sirius said. “You want something. You always wanted something but couldn’t ask, because for some reason you think you don’t have the right to. Just ask me. Just ask me, Remus.”  
  
“I don’t have the right to.”  
  
Sirius grabbed his shoulders and shook him, and Remus was frozen, like maybe he was the ghost after all. He wanted to put his hands on Sirius’ shoulders, touch Sirius’ face, undress them both and have his hands all over Sirius, trace every scar and every mark, kiss him everywhere, have his hand on Sirius’ dick and his fingers brushing behind Sirius’ balls, make Sirius grab his hair while he took Sirius’ dick in his mouth. He wanted Sirius to fuck him. And he wanted to cry, bloody hell how much he wanted to cry, and he wanted to hit Sirius in the face until Sirius made him stop, and then he wanted to cry a little bit more. He wanted another chance, and he wanted the last thirteen years to never have happened.  
  
“I want everything,” he said.

**

“ _Everything?_ ” Sirius asked five minutes later.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What is,” Sirius said and took a deep breath, “everything?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Remus said and then hit his shoulder against the corner of the wardrobe. Sirius closed the door, cast a locking charm and walked back to him, and he took a step back and hit his shoulder again. _Fuck._  
  
“You’re smiling,” Sirius said, cornering Remus against the wall and pushing his hands under Remus’ shirt. He ran his fingers on Remus’ skin, pressed his thumb into the soft flesh under Remus’ ribs, poked with his fingertips, stopped at the new scars.  
  
“We aren’t going to do this,” Remus said, resting the back of his head against the wall. Sirius had that look in his eyes, as if he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. The same look he had had a moment ago in the drawing room when he had stopped shaking Remus by the shoulders and blinked at him and then tried to let go, but Remus had grabbed his arms and held tight. He had tried to push Remus away and then when Remus had finally allowed that, he had walked back to Remus and grabbed him again.  
  
“What?” Sirius asked now, his face too close to Remus’, his eyes lost. “What aren’t we going to do?”  
  
Remus bit his lip.  
  
“You’re staring at me,” Sirius said, pushing his hands up under Remus’ shirt until he was stroking Remus’ shoulders. “All the time. In the summer, too. But you never say anything.”  
  
“I don’t…” Remus took a deep breath. “There’s nothing to say.”  
  
“The hell there isn’t.”  
  
“Nothing that would change anything.”  
  
“What are you trying to change?” Sirius said, reaching for Remus’ chin.  
  
Remus shook his head. Sirius grabbed his chin anyway.  
  
“You’re the only one left,” Sirius said, holding him in place. His grip was surprisingly tight. Remus supposed he could have got free if he had really wanted, but he would have had to try. “You’re the only one,” Sirius said, “you keep wanting something from me and don’t tell me what it is. It’s just… can’t you see that I would… you’re the _only thing I have left._ ”  
  
“You have Harry,” Remus said.  
  
“Not the same.”  
  
Of course it wasn’t the same thing. “Why?”  
  
“Because we were together,” Sirius said, let go of Remus’ chin, put his hands on Remus’ chest and pushed him against the wall. “We were _together_ , you just keep pretending that we weren’t, and I don’t know why, it’s so –”  
  
“You didn’t want me.”  
  
Sirius opened his mouth and then closed it again. Remus grabbed his wrists and squeezed as tightly as he dared to.  
  
“You didn’t want anything to do with me,” he said, staring into Sirius’ eyes. It was surprisingly easy to talk like this, when he wasn’t sure if they were fighting or what the fuck this was.  
  
“Not true,” Sirius said, but he was looking at Remus as if he wished the truth would slip out of Remus.  
  
“Of course it is.”  
  
“I don’t know why we broke up,” Sirius said, “but I didn’t stop loving you, it just doesn’t make sense that I’d –”  
  
Remus pulled him to the side and flipped them so that it was Sirius who was pinned against the wall by Remus’ hands on his shoulders. Sirius was still thinner than he had ever been before. “Don’t tell me what happened. I was there. I remember.”  
  
“I was there too,” Sirius said, but he didn’t look so certain.  
  
“You don’t know what it’s been like,” Remus said, “you don’t have a fucking clue. You were away. And I was… you _left_ me, you dumped me and told me you didn’t love me anymore, and I felt like… like my whole life had been ripped apart, and I kept waiting for you to tell me it was a joke or something, that you did want me after all, because I couldn’t imagine living without you, and… but then you killed all my friends and it all made sense and –”  
  
“I didn’t kill them.”  
  
“I _know_ ,” he said and pushed Sirius harder against the wall. Oh, god, his heart was beating in his throat and he couldn’t breathe. “It all made sense. I was nothing to you. And I should’ve just forgotten about you, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, because I was still in love with you.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, watching him.  
  
“I still am,” he said and let go of Sirius’ shoulders. His hands were shaking. He realised vaguely that everything around them had gone perfectly silent, as if the house was listening, too. He wanted to leave but couldn’t, no, he was stuck like he had been for thirteen years. “I’m still in love with you,” he said.  
  
“You’re an idiot,” Sirius said. He still had his back against the wall.  
  
Remus nodded and took a step away.  
  
“Do you want to,” Sirius said and swallowed visibly, “do you want to kiss me?”  
  
“Do I want to…”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I don’t think we can just pretend that everything’s alright.”  
  
“Why not?” Sirius asked. There was something familiar in the way he was looking at Remus now, as if he thought everything was within his reach. The funny thing was that to some extent, he was right about that.  
  
“I want to,” Remus started and took a deep breath, “I want you to fuck me.”  
  
Sirius smiled a little. “That’s not _everything._ That’s very specific, Remus.”  
  
“Shut the fuck up.”  
  
“There’s this one thing, though,” Sirius said, watching him. The smile changed. “I don’t think I can. My dick doesn’t work.”  
  
Remus stared at Sirius.  
  
“Not like that,” Sirius said. “Not anymore. I suppose it used to.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Because I kind of remember…”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“We used to –”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, trying to breathe, and wasn’t it ridiculous that he was _blushing_ , after everything that had happened? Utterly ridiculous. “Yeah. We used to do that.”  
  
“You can’t be in love with me anymore,” Sirius said. The smile had disappeared. “I’m not the same person anymore.”  
  
“I’m not either.”  
  
“I didn’t _live_ ,” Sirius said. “I got put in there, and everything just moved on without me –”  
  
“Could you –,” Remus paused and licked his lips. “With your fingers? If you want to. Because I…”  
  
“You want me to fuck you with my fingers?”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“I…” Sirius blinked. “Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. I can do that.”  
  
“If you don’t want to –”  
  
“Stop talking,” Sirius said, grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Then he unzipped his trousers. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”  
  
“I don’t know what –”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, walked to him, grabbed his arm and squeezed. Then he put his hand on Remus’ crotch and palmed his dick through the fabric. “Remus, Remus, _Remus._ ”  
  
“I don’t know how to _do_ this, I’m too –”  
  
“We’ll figure it out,” Sirius said. “How long have you been hard?”  
  
“A while.”  
  
“You fucking git.”  
  
“ _Hey_ ,” Remus said. He realised vaguely that he was smiling and wanted to hit himself in the face but couldn’t concentrate, not now when Sirius was opening the zipper of his trousers. He took a sharp breath as Sirius pushed his fingertips under the waistband of Remus’ pants, then pushed his whole hand there.  
  
“You should have _said_ something,” Sirius said, closing his fingers around Remus’ dick.  
  
“I couldn’t.”  
  
“Why the fuck not? It’s just me.”  
  
“ _Because_ it’s you.”  
  
“I want you to go to the bed,” Sirius said, leaning so close to Remus that Remus could taste his breath. It smelled of tea and ham. Not entirely pleasant but he didn’t give a fuck. He needed Sirius to kiss him more than he had ever needed anything in this life. “To the bed,” Sirius said and pulled his hand out of Remus’ pants.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Sirius blinked and something shifted in his eyes. “Is this… because this is how we used to… I used to tell you what…”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, “it’s good. Like this.”  
  
“Good,” Sirius said and kissed him. And then he pulled back and shoved at Remus’ shoulder. “To the bed.”

**

He wasn’t the same person. He settled onto the mattress on his knees, his face against the sheets, his hands trying to grasp anything to hold on to. He could hear himself panting, he could hear his own heart and he felt like he would have to swallow it down, because this was too much, he couldn’t take it. He had broken his heart once and it hadn’t healed and he couldn’t do it again, and he was kind of crying about Sirius stroking his palm over Remus’ back. Sirius was going to break his heart again and this time, Remus wasn’t going to survive. He wasn’t sure he had exactly survived the first time, either, but here he was, in bed, with Sirius touching his thighs and then pulling them a little bit more apart. Nothing mattered except Sirius’ hands on him. Nothing else was real, never had been. He tried to breathe and bit his tongue. Sirius touched the small of his back and then pushed a finger in between Remus’ cheeks, and realised he was shivering and could do nothing about it. He didn’t want anything anymore except for Sirius to love him.  
  
“Hey,” Sirius said, stroking Remus’ back soothingly with his other hand. He also had his fingertip settled against the ring of muscle at Remus’ hole.  
  
“Sorry,” Remus said. “Sorry, I…”  
  
“Shh,” Sirius said. “You’re going to be alright.” And then he pushed his finger in.

**

“I should go,” Remus said later, when they were lying in bed, Sirius’ arm wrapped around his shoulders and his knee pushed in between Sirius’ thighs. He had cleaned himself and the sheets with a charm but still felt sticky, and Sirius had said twice it was alright that he couldn’t come. It was enough that Remus could. When Remus had asked for the third time, Sirius had told him to shut up.  
  
“Where’re you going?” Sirius asked, blinking.  
  
“Home.”  
  
Sirius leaned up against his elbow, looking puzzled. Then he flinched. “ _Fuck._ ”  
  
Remus reached to brush his fingers against the scars inside Sirius’ forearm.  
  
“I forgot,” Sirius said and dropped down on the mattress.  
  
“Does it happen often?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You don’t think that you’re back in –”  
  
“No. I don’t. Just sometimes when I’m… I’ve had a dream, or…” Sirius closed his eyes. “We lived together. Do you remember?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I can’t believe we lost it.”  
  
“The flat wasn’t that good.”  
  
“No, I meant… everything.”  
  
Remus took a deep breath.  
  
“Tell me,” Sirius said, rolling onto his side to look at Remus. “Was it good? The sex? Just now? Was it…”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Was it what you wanted?”  
  
“Yeah. Of course.”  
  
“There’s no _of course_ about that,” Sirius said. “You can’t leave. Not tonight. I want you to sleep there or… or else I’m going to think that it didn’t happen.”  
  
“It’s a bad idea.”  
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
“Someone will realise. And then they’ll talk.”  
  
“I don’t _care_ ,” Sirius said. “I want you to stay.”

  
Remus slept in Sirius’ bed. In the morning, he woke up to the dim light coming through the curtains. Sirius was awake and watching him, and he felt stretched and exhausted and also so hopeful he didn’t know how to bear it. He put on his clothes, told Sirius that he would come back, and left.

**

**

1979

“Hey,” Sirius said, “come here.”  
  
Remus blinked. It was early December and there was a snowstorm outside, the windows were clattering, and he was a little drunk from the wine they had been drinking but thought he could hide it if he concentrated. James, Peter and Lily had just left, and Sirius was sitting on the sofa, his legs crossed and the kind of smile on his face that Remus didn’t know how to read. That was probably a bad sign.  
  
He got to his feet, walked to Sirius and sat down on the sofa next to him.  
  
“You’re drunk,” Sirius said. His eyes were moving back and forth over Remus.  
  
“No, I’m not.”  
  
“Sure you are.”  
  
“You’re drunk too.”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius said and put his hand on Remus’ knee. He did that sometimes. He was handsy. He was handsy and perfect and Remus knew it had been a bad idea to move in with him. He walked around naked all the time and one day, he would realise Remus was staring. “It’s too bright in here,” Sirius said and pulled out his wand, and in a few seconds, the light charm in the ceiling disappeared. Then he turned to look at Remus again. He looked tired and a little drunk and Remus really wanted to kiss him. “I’ve been thinking,” Sirius said.  
  
“What?” He wanted to kiss Sirius, probably with tongue, even though he hadn’t done much of that, but everyone seemed to think it was the real deal. And he wanted other things. He wanted Sirius to push him down here on the sofa, to sit on his lap and undress him and tell him that he was going to be alright, because for some reason he always believed it when Sirius told him. He probably would always believe Sirius.  
  
And he wanted more. He wanted Sirius to fuck him. He was pretty sure of that. He knew it would never happen but he wanted to, oh _shit_ how much he wanted to, he would’ve given anything for just one chance at getting Sirius Black to fuck him, and then he would know what it was like. Then he would be happy.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, and Remus frowned, because this wasn’t the drunk Sirius talking anymore, no, this wasn’t jokes and banter and all that, this was the voice Sirius used when he was really trying to say something. And he was looking at Remus as if he was trying to decide something, and wasn’t that weird, because Sirius never thought about anything beforehand, no, he just did what he wanted and Remus told him that he was an idiot, but really, he thought Sirius was brilliant. Just brilliant. And very pretty. “Hey,” Sirius said, taking Remus’ hand and petting Remus’ knuckles with his thumb. “How drunk are you?”  
  
“Not drunk.”  
  
“You can’t be much drunker than me.”  
  
“I’m not,” Remus said, trying to concentrate. Sirius always smelled so good. “Not drunk.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said, still holding Remus’ hand. Remus couldn’t understand why. “Have you ever been with anyone?”  
  
“What?” he asked and then coughed. “ _What?_ ”  
  
“I think I’d know if you had,” Sirius said, chewing on his lower lip. “So I suppose you haven’t. I think we should do it.”  
  
Remus didn’t understand anything. Maybe he was drunk after all. “We should do what?”  
  
“Make love,” Sirius said, watching him with an almost nervous look on his face.  
  
“ _What?_ ”  
  


“We should fuck. I meant that.”  
  
Remus swallowed. Oh, _shit,_ Sirius had realised what he was thinking, and this was some kind of a joke, it had to be, and he needed to get away right now, only when he tried to pull his hand from Sirius’ grip, Sirius didn’t let him.  
  
“Don’t tell the others,” Sirius said slowly, “but I kind of like you.”  
  
Remus opened his mouth and then closed it again.  
  
“And you’re always staring at me when I come from the shower.”  
  
Oh, _fuck._ “Because you’re naked.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said slowly. “You’re staring at me _because I’m naked._ ”  
  
Remus shook his head.  
  
“And usually I feel like maybe you’re staring at my dick,” Sirius said. His voice was impossibly gentle now. He had always been gentle with Remus, except when he wasn’t, but that didn’t count because usually he was, and Remus couldn’t understand _why._ People weren’t nice to him for no reason. But Sirius was. Had been from the beginning.  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Don’t,” Sirius said, smiling a little, but he looked nervous. “You always apologise about the wrong things. Do you want to have sex with me?”  
  
Remus stared at him.  
  
“Do you?” Sirius asked. “Because if you don’t, that’s alright, obviously. We’ll just drop it then. And I really hope you aren’t going to tell James, because he’d never let me forget about it. But if you… We can go slow. It’ll be good, I promise. I’ll be gentle.”  
  
“How do you… have you…”  
  
“No,” Sirius said, “no, I’ve just slept with girls. You know that. But I’ve read about it. There was this book in the library in Grimmauld Place, and I was looking for something else when I found it. I don’t know how long it had been there because certainly my mother wouldn’t read anything like that, but it was… pretty instructional.”  
  
“I don’t get it.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said and took his face in between his hands. He supposed he had stopped breathing at some point. “Do you want me to fuck you?”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, only he didn’t really feel like he was speaking, or like this was happening to him at all. “Yeah, sure. Okay.”  
  
“Alright,” Sirius said. “Good.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“Great,” Sirius said, grinned and then frowned, and Remus just stared at him, because surely there wasn’t anything else to do. “I’m going to take a piss first. And then we can do it.”  
  
It was probably good that Remus was more than a little drunk, because otherwise he didn’t know how he would have gotten through it. When they were finally in bed, all their clothes still on, Sirius kissed him, and he wanted to tell Sirius everything: that he had been thinking about this for a long time, like, a _very_ long time, and actually he had been in love with Sirius more or less as long as he could remember. Somehow he managed to keep his mouth closed. He did what Sirius told him to, and it was awkward and hurt a little and he felt self-conscious in a way that even the wine couldn’t soften much. But finally Sirius had his cock in Remus’ ass and his fingers wrapped around Remus’ cock, and about three seconds later, Sirius came with an uncoordinated thrust and a few swear words. And Remus was panting and oddly disappointed and also kind of beginning to realise that now it was over, this was the one time that Sirius Black had fucked him and it was over and he wasn’t going to be able to get on with his life, like, ever.  
  
“Sorry,” Sirius said, slipping out of Remus and then rolling onto his back on the mattress. Then he let out a laugh. “ _Sorry_ , I’m just… that was…”  
  
“Shut up,” Remus said. He was still hard and he really wanted to come and also he wanted to both kill Sirius and kiss him.  
  
“That was _perfect_ ,” Sirius said, “you were perfect, I can’t believe we haven’t done that before, because that was… Remus?”  
  
Remus was trying to climb off from the bed but it was a little difficult. Apparently, he was very drunk.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, “you fucking idiot, come here, I’ll jerk you off, or whatever you want, just tell me. Just tell me. I’ll even…” And then he stopped talking for a second and grinned. “Get on your back,” Sirius said, and Remus did, because apparently he did everything Sirius told him to.  
  
And then Sirius settled in between Remus’ knees, took his cock in his hand and – as if that hadn’t been enough – then leaned down until he could take it in his mouth.

**

They didn’t tell anyone, but a few weeks later, they were kissing in the kitchen when James, Peter and Lily Apparated to their living room, dropped a bottle of wine onto the floor, shouted at them a little, and then teased them relentlessly for the rest of the night. It was a good night, though. It ended with Sirius trying to fuck Remus in the bathroom, which was a terrible idea and didn’t work out at all, but Sirius was laughing and sounded so happy and so utterly unworried about everything that Remus almost stopped worrying, too.  
  
One morning, he woke up in the bed he was apparently sharing with Sirius now. Sirius was awake already and watching him. Remus tried to look cool, but he had always been crap at that.  
  
“You’re in love with me,” Sirius said.  
  
Remus opened his mouth.  
  
“This isn’t just about sex, right?” Sirius asked. “I think you’re in love with me. Tell me if I’m right.”  
  
Remus thought about his options. There weren’t many. He was already in Sirius’ bed, he was naked, Sirius knew he did anything Sirius ever asked of him, and of course he was in love with Sirius. “Yeah.”  
  
“I’m right?”  
  
“You’re right.”  
  
“I knew it,” Sirius said, grinned and kissed him. “That’s good. I think I’m in love with you, too. What do you want to do today?”  
  
“I have work,” Remus said. He felt as if he was reading a book with a plot twist that he definitely hadn’t seen coming.  
  
“Well, we can do something later,” Sirius said and climbed off the bed. He wasn’t wearing any clothes. Remus stared at his butt. “I’m hungry. If I make coffee, are you going to fry eggs?”  
  
“Okay,” Remus said.

**

**

1995

The next time he went to the Grimmauld Place, there was no meeting. He had no reason to leave his cup of tea on the kitchen table and Apparate to London, no reason to slip through the protection charms and linger in the hallway until Sirius found him there.  
  
This time, Sirius said he wanted to do it slowly and then used some kind of a wordless charm to slick his fingers and pushed one into Remus’ ass while Remus still had his shirt on. The bed hissed. Remus closed his eyes and tried to think about nothing, when Sirius settled behind him in between his sprawled legs and moved his finger in a tiny circle that wasn’t exactly hitting its goal. But when Remus tried to touch his dick, Sirius slapped his hand away and did it himself, grabbed Remus and started tugging in an odd rhythm, then pulled his other hand out for a second and returned with two fingers. Then he kissed Remus’ neck.  
  
“What’re we doing?” Remus asked later. He was lying on his back on the bed. He still had on a shirt but not pants, and he had cast a quick cleaning charm but still felt sticky, and Sirius was inspecting one of the scars on his left thigh. It was one of the newer ones.  
  
“What?” Sirius asked and blinked at him.  
  
“What’re we doing?”  
  
Sirius frowned. “What do you mean, what’re we doing?”  
  
“I mean…” Remus swallowed. “Us. We can’t just…”  
  
“We can’t just what? Fuck? You think someone’s going to get upset?”  
  
“No, I…” But he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “We can’t go back to how things used to be.”  
  
“Do you want to go back to how things used to be?”  
  
He bit his lips. “Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said, stroking his shoulder.  
  
“But we can’t do that.”  
  
“Yeah. No.”  
  
“I don’t know what to –”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said. “You said _everything._ ”  
  
Remus opened his eyes.  
  
“You said you wanted everything,” Sirius said, staring at him. He had dark rings under his eyes, his hair was getting too long and it was very badly cut, his face still looked too narrow, and he was the prettiest man Remus had ever seen. “ _Everything._ That’s what you said.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said.  
  
“Did you mean it?”  
  
“Yeah. But…”  
  
“But what?”  
  
 _But_ , he thought, _what about the war? What about other people? Are we going to tell them? Are we going to tell Harry? Are we going to be together again? Is this it? And what about us? What about the people we’ve become? We aren’t what we used to be. We can’t repeat what we did the first time. We can’t make the same mistakes again._ But he didn’t know if he had anything else left in him. He had lost Sirius once and that had made him hollow and bitter and broken. If there was a chance for Sirius and him, he didn’t know if he was capable. And he didn’t know if he could take the risk.  
  
“Nothing,” he said.  
  
Sirius watched him for a moment and then climbed onto him. He licked his lips then put his hands on both sides of Remus’ face, brushed his thumbs gently against Remus’ lower lip, and then leaned down and kissed Remus. His knee was poking at Remus’ thigh. He kissed clumsily and with too much teeth. As if he was in a hurry. As if he wasn’t sure how much time they had left.  
  
 _But_ , Remus thought, what if they really had a chance? What if this time, Sirius wouldn’t stop loving him? What if they were going to be happy? What if this time, the ending would be different?

**

**

1996

At the end of June, he felt like was made out of stone. He had felt like that before. And he didn’t know if this was better or worse. It had been two weeks now, there had been no funeral, he still woke up every morning and it took him half a second to remember what had happened, and he was kind of keeping himself busy so he wouldn’t start thinking that it’d be for the best if he died, too. But every time he stopped, it caught him.  
  
He got through the days somehow. There would be more of them. And he was broken and hollow and bitter but there was one detail to this sorrow that was easy to carry, and it was that Sirius had loved him.

**

**

1980

At the end of June, he once came home late at night from seeing Dumbledore about things he couldn’t discuss with Sirius. He hated that already. He found Sirius half-sitting, half-lying on their sofa. At first he thought Sirius was drunk. Then he realised Sirius was dozing off. He made tea then sat down at the kitchen table to drink it, and the flat was quiet, and Sirius’ right arm was hanging over the back of the sofa. Surely it was a miracle that Remus had all this.  
  
He was trying to sneak into the bathroom to brush his teeth when Sirius stirred awake. “Remus?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What’s the… it’s late.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said and turned to Sirius.  
  
“What did you –”  
  
“I can’t tell you.”  
  
Sirius stared at him for a few seconds. He held his breath. They had had a fight about this a few weeks ago.  
  
“Okay,” Sirius said. “Come here.”  
  
“I was going to brush my teeth.”  
  
“Then brush your teeth and come here.”  
  
“We should go to bed.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Sirius said, but he was smiling the smile that was Remus’ favourite. He got up from the sofa and brushed his teeth with Remus, their shoulders touching, and Remus kept glancing at him through the mirror. Then they went to bed. It had been days since they had last fucked, maybe a week, but Sirius said he was half-asleep and Remus was still thinking about everything Dumbledore had said to him. He draped his arm over Sirius’ waist and pushed his nose against the back of Sirius’ neck.  
  
“Hey,” he said.  
  
“I’m asleep,” Sirius said.  
  
“Okay,” Remus said and kissed his neck. “I was thinking about something.”  
  
“Please, don’t,” Sirius said.  
  
“It’s about us.”  
  
Sirius was silent for a moment. His breathing had changed. “I don’t want to fight.”  
  
“It’s not that,” Remus said and bit his lip. “I just… do you ever think about how this is going to end?” Because sometimes he thought he wasn’t. He was scared and tired and hopelessly in love with Sirius and still somehow struck by the fact that Sirius actually loved him back, and on some days, he forgot to think about the future.  
  
“Sure,” Sirius said. “The ending’s going to be good. We’re going to be happy.”

**Author's Note:**

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> 
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